Four tourists die in Yemen blast

Four South Korean tourists have been killed and four more wounded by an explosion in the historic city of Shibam in southeast Yemen.

"According to a preliminary toll, the explosion killed four South Korean tourists and wounded four more, as well as a Yemeni man," a security official in Hadramawt province said.

"We think the blast was caused by a bomb that had been planted there."

Earlier, a local official said the explosion "may have been a suicide attack, but this has not yet been confirmed."

The security official said the blast came as the tourists were photographing the sunset, and that an inquiry had been launched.

"The explosion happened as they were gathered on a hill called Khazzan that overlooks the city. They were on foot and taking pictures of the buildings in Shibam at the moment the sun went down," he added.

Shibam, 800 kilometres south-east of Sanaa, is a UNESCO world heritage site well known for its high-rise mud-brick buildings.

"Its impressive tower-like structures rise out of the cliff and have given the city the nickname of the Manhattan of the desert'," the UNESCO World Heritage website says.

In January 2008 two Belgian tourists were shot dead along with their local guide and driver in Hadramawt.

Two months later, the US embassy was the target of mortar fire that missed and hit a school, killing two people.

A car bomb attack in Marib, also east of Sanaa, in July 2007 killed eight Spanish holidaymakers and two Yemeni drivers.

Yemen is the ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden, and al Qaeda has launched many operations there - notably the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in the port of Aden that killed 17 sailors.

Few tourists visit Yemen, which also has a history of abductions of Westerners by powerful tribes who then use them as bargaining chips with the authorities. Those kidnapped are generally freed unharmed.

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